Comments on: The USS Bonhomme Richard's Quiet Swine Flu Outbreak

By: Eddie

Eddie — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:50:25 +0000

Gastric flu outbreaks are probably the most common on naval vessels. We had one on every deployment I had on the USS Kitty Hawk and every work-up I had on the USS Abraham Lincoln. The worst was in April ‘04 when we were down 15%-20% of sailors over a three day period in manpower sensitive departments/areas like the flight deck and engineering watch standers. The food service rank and file (new sailors typically assigned to three months of duty there to “season them” to the real Navy and to fill a required temporary assigned duty billet) were even more decimated, so food prep went out the window and we were eating dry meals and sipping out of soda cans.
I imagine most of the same principles devised in response to “gastro” have a utility for H1N1 or most other social bugs.
You can’t function in even a diminished state when you’re vomiting and have no control over your digestive functions. You typically have dizziness, extreme loss of breath and have trouble getting even one full REM sleep cycle. Being that’s it a 36-72 hour bug, it can have a disastrous impact on operational readiness, especially during a high-tempo period like combat flight ops or a high-visibility training exercise.

The best weight-loss plan I ever tried though… I dropped about 9 lbs after getting it (or something close to it the second time) twice in three weeks.

By: Christopher Albon

Christopher Albon — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:44:03 +0000

Congratulations on graduating Gail! I have no idea what certificate/qualification/degree you got, but good on you!

You hit the nail on the head.

I get a decent amount of “It’s just the flu” comments from folks, especially in the military. They are right, it is just the flu right… now. However, the procedures we put in place now for the flu will be the same used in the any future outbreak of a mutated H1N1 or more virulent pathogen. To venture dangerously into a sports metaphor: H1N1 is simply the exhibition game before the start of the real challenges. We get it right now so we know what to do when it the disease is far more serious.

The political problems from disease are HUGE. H1N1 was “just the flu” but it caused a Naval operation to be 50% smaller because the original ship (USS Dubuque) had a minor outbreak and the US didn’t want to be perceived as spreading Swine Flu to our allies.

What happens to winning hearts and minds when an outbreak amongst troops in the US spreads to the Iraqi population during their deployment? Or vice versa? It has happened before, and it will happen again.

By: Gail

Gail — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:19:49 +0000

Chris: There is potential for it to get much worse this fall as the military is a highly “social” activity (lots of people in small spaces) and as the H1N1 mutates…. Just completed a military course and we were packed in to an auditorium for 4 hours sitting shoulder-shoulder with each other. Guy in front of me was coughing his lung up. I asked if he was sick or just had a cough (the former), and then I asked why he wasn’t sitting off to the side (nobody thought of it–we had to be in alphabetical order to get our diplomas). After the ceremony I washed my hands about 5 times. No lie. The bigger political problem is that as we export the flu around the world with these deployments it becomes a political problem for the “host nations” since they are playing host, but the guest is bringing a disease. Who wants that? Especially if the disease mutates in to something more virulent.